A by-product of chemical processes and biomass energy generation, liquid carbon dioxide as a cleaning medium has a long shelf-life, supplied in cylinders or tanks.

CO2 SNOW-JET CLEANS MEDICAL PRODUCTS

Cleaning medical products demands newer, more advanced technology that offers a dry, non-aggressive, and residue-free solution: CO2 snow-jet cleaning. Implants, instruments, and aids need to be sterile and free of residues from production processes.

For implants, cannulas, surgical instruments, and other medical products, antibacterial cleanliness is mandatory, and since carbon dioxide is inherently anti-bacterial, dry, non-aggressive, and leaves no residues. When combined with the right process technology, CO2 snow-jet cleaning also offers low cost of ownership.

CO2 snow-jet cleaning works on non-porous or porous materials and internally cleans blind holes. In addition, combined features of cooling and cleaning replaces the coolant for dry machining of plastic parts.

Dry, residue-free

Liquid CO2 flows through the non-wearing, two-component ring nozzle of the system and expands upon exit to form fine CO2 crystals. A circular jacketed jet of compressed air bundles the crystals and accelerates them to supersonic speed. Uniform cleaning results are possible on large surfaces, where several nozzles are used.

When -78.5°C compressed air and snow impacts a surface it creates a thermal, mechanical, sublimation combination generating a solvent effect. These four cleaning mechanisms enable acp’s quattroClean system to remove filmic contamination, such as residues of cooling lubricants, process oils, polishing pastes, separating agents, and silicones, as well as particulate contamination – chips, dust, and abrasion. Non-combustible, non-corrosive, non-toxic CO2 snow is gentle on materials, making it suitable for delicate and finely-structured surfaces.

The jet’s aerodynamic force transports detached dirt away from the part and extracts it from the cleaning cell together with the sublimated CO2 gas. The workpieces emerge from cleaning dry, ready for additional processing or packaging.

Automation friendly

With its modular design, the compact quattroClean system can be adapted to customer requirements, allowing manual, partially-automated and even fully-automated cleaning systems to be developed for existing production, assembly, and packaging lines. Cleaning tests conducted at the acp technical center determine all the application’s process parameters, such as volume flows for compressed air and carbon dioxide, as well as the jet duration. Material properties and the contamination requiring removal are considered and these parameters can be filed as cleaning programs in the system control.

Suitable solutions

The quattroClean snow jet technology can remove ablation residues from injection-molded interconnect devices (MID) produced by laser direct structuring. Compared with ultrasonic or high-pressure washing processes, the quattroClean system can smooth the rough laser structures while cleaning, simplifying joining and assembly tasks.

A manufacturer of sensor systems uses acp snow jet technology to clean off particles before sensors are packaged. A hermetically-sealed cleaning cell integrates into a clean zone and uses a filter fan unit to supply clean air.

The in-line system cleans engine pistons before their surfaces are optically measured, working in the production system’s one-piece flow. The parts are cleaned by a robot at 11cm2/sec.

For die-cutting, the system removes production residues from strips immediately after cutting, a single-part cleaning step that replaces the commonly-used wet-chemical cleaning process.

Intelligent Fusion technology

Three new filament additions to AM materials portfolio

SABIC added three filaments to its materials portfolio line for fused deposition modeling: Ultem AMHU1010F and Lexan AMHC620F filaments for healthcare applications; and Ultem AM1010F filament for general high-temperature applications, including tooling. These materials can be used for end-use parts as well as prototypes.

Lexan AMHC620F polycarbonate (PC) filament, healthcare-grade resins available in white, is biocompatible and can be sterilized with gamma or EtO methods. This filament meets UL94 HB rating at 1.5mm.

Both filaments deliver excellent mechanical performance and are suitable for various medical devices, from conceptual modeling to functional prototyping and end-use parts. Possible customized or personalized applications include surgical instruments, single-use devices, and casts/splints.

Ultem AM1010F, provides high-heat resistance (a glass transition temperature of 217°C) and high mechanical strength. It can be used in applications such as short-cycle injection molding tools, carbon-fiber layup tools, and general high-temperature applications. The filament is UL94 V-0 compliant at 1.5mm and 5VA compliant at 3.0mm.

Typically composed of three or more metals, so far no one has blended multimetallic clusters with more than four metal elements due to unfavorable separation. Researchers at the Tokyo Institute of Technology are hoping to overcome these challenges by miniaturizing cluster sizes to the 1nm scale, forcing the different metals to be blended in a small space.

Researchers including Takamasa Tsukamoto, Takane Imaoka, and Kimihisa Yamamoto have developed an atom hybridization method that synthesizes multimetallic clusters of more than five metal elements with precise control of size and composition. A dendrimer template serves as a tiny scaffold to control accumulation of metal salts. After precise uptake of the different metals into the dendrimer, chemical reduction produces multimetallic clusters. In contrast, a conventional method without the dendrimer enlarges cluster sizes and separates into different metals.

Large clusters (larger than 10nm) are obtained, and different metals are separated from each other.

Photo: Tokyo Institute of Technology

The team demonstrated the formation of five-element clusters composed of gallium (Ga), indium (In), gold (Au), bismuth (Bi), and tin (Sn), as well as iron (Fe), palladium (Pd), rhodium (Rh), antimony (Sb), and copper (Cu), and a six-element cluster consisting of Ga, In, Au, Bi, Sn, and platinum (Pt). Additionally, the team hinted at the possibility of making clusters composed of eight metals or more.

Future development

There are more than 90 metals in the periodic table. With infinite combinations of metal elements, atomicity, and composition, the atom-hybridization method can open a new field in chemistry. The current study is a major step forward in creating such as-yet-unknown materials.

FYI

ATOM HYBRIDIZATION:

A method for synthesizing multimetallic clusters on a 1nm scale that uses a dendrimer as a nanosized template. Various metal ions can be taken up into the dendrimer structure with various combinations. Multimetallic clusters are obtained by chemical reduction of these metal ions on the template.

DENDRIMER TEMPLATE:

A dendrimer is a specific macromolecule with repetitively branched structures. The team uses a dendrimer template suitably designed for the assembly of metal atoms in controlling the number of atoms.

Laser measurement system

Departments - Products + Technology

Using technology developed for the XM-60 multi-axis calibrator, the XM-600 laser measurement system offers enhanced capability to connect directly with universal coordinate measuring machine (CMM) controllers (UCC). This allows faster and easier error mapping, measuring all six degrees of freedom from a single setup, in any orientation for linear axes. The XM-600 communicates easily with UCC software during calibration to quickly build a complete error map of the CMM, supported by UCCsuite V5.4 and higher. The XM-600 has the same compatibility with CARTO software as the XM-60.

Mill-turn control technology

The TNC 640 mill-turn control features touch technology, allowing the user to navigate quickly through long lists, programs, tables, and other content using gestures. Programming and 3D test graphics can be moved directly on the screen – dynamically, smoothly, and without jerks.

The minimum requirement for NC Software version is 340 59x-07 SP2. The hardware enabling touch control are the MC8532 main computer and the BF 860 color flat-panel.

Clamping levers with eccentrical cam

GN 927 clamping levers feature an eccentrical cam, in tapped-type and threaded-stud versions. The RoHS-compliant levers offer torque-free rapid clamping and releasing, and movement cannot exceed the maximum clamping position. There are no loose components, since all are assembled and mounted in order. Thrust forces of up to 1.8 lb (8N) can be obtained.

Ultrasonic cleaning

The GMC stainless-steel ultrasonic cleaning system achieves chemical compatibility with aggressive caustic and acidic agents. Versions of the system can accommodate parts with one dimension up to 35", up to 125 lb. The line’s two sizes are self-contained, supported on casters, and operate from commonly available power supplies, making them easy to move where needed for in-place or utility cleaning. GMC systems include a pump and dual stainless cartridge filtration, a surface sparger, automated controls for heat, pump and ultrasonics, a lid, and one standard basket. A drip pan drains one basket of parts, while cleaning another.

The center can print high-precision titanium (Ti64Al4V) parts on Renishaw’s RenAM 500 series of laser-powder-bed-fusion AM systems. For industrial production applications, the RenAM 500 series allows automatic powder sieving and recirculation within the compact system, reducing manual handling and material exposure.

To provide a complete picture of metal AM, the center features wet downdraft, heat treatment, support, machining, inspection, and part removal equipment, working in concert with the AM system to ensure parts are printed and finished to specifications.

Senvol earns NIST grant for AM analytics

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) awarded a grant to Senvol for its “Continuous Learning for Additive Manufacturing Processes Through Advanced Data Analytics,” project, demonstrating that data analytics can be applied to additive manufacturing (AM) data to establish process-structure-property (PSP) relationships. Senvol ML data-driven machine learning software for AM will be used to conduct the analyses; data will come from NIST’s various round-robin test studies and its AM Benchmark Test Series.

“The work in this project will demonstrate the power of a data-driven machine learning approach for additive manufacturing process understanding and material characterization… [showcasing] hybrid modeling, whereby physics-based models and data-driven models are joined under a single framework,” says Yan Lu, senior research scientist at NIST.

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